hdas

Hi All,
I currently ride about 100 miles per week in this fashion:

Wednesday - 25-40 mile ride, 3000ft-4000ft elevation gain, 2-3 hour.
Sunday - 60-75 mile ride, 5000ft-6000ft elevation gain, 4-6 hour.

I really don't want to ride more days during the week, however, I would like to have an idea on the difference in performance gains overtime if I were to do 3 short rides 1hr during the week + long ride on Sunday. Is there a clear better approach between these two?.

Thanks

Iride01 

Depends on what the goal is. If you are just riding because you like riding, then anything goes, IMO.

hdas

The goal is to keep improving. I had planned to complete (Tryplebypass, Mount Evans, Copper Triangle) this summer, but those events are cancelled. For the sake of getting feedback, lets assume the goal was to complete those events. Thanks. H

ZHVelo

You don't seem to have any intervals whatsoever, might be a good idea to throw at least one interval session into your week.

spelger

that is 8-10 k feet of climbing in only two days. good on you, i can do about 6k across 5 days and that is enough for me.

does that amount of climbing make you tired enough to need the three days between?

agree with intervals though. i do them on a trainer, far easier without traffic lights/stop signs.

hdas

Yeah, I could fit say, 2 more days of light riding, but then I wouldn't be able to do strength training (pullups, squats, deadlifts, etc). I need some time to recover from that as well. The day after those rides I can't do anything else but some light yoga. Maybe I can incorporate the intervals during the weekday ride. H

hdas

Would it be enough to incorporate the intervals during my weekday ride?

Seattle Forrest

I take my intervals as mother nature hands them out, for the most part. Hills and headwinds. I also have a few places on some of my loops where I can go at an intensity appropriate for the amount of time it takes to cross, up to 20 minutes. So, yes, you can work them into a regular ride. Can be taxing and you still have to get home.

ZHVelo

Sure, I think Seattle is spot, especially the taxing part. I do my intervals always on the same route, takes me at most 16km from home, there's a roundabout there and I come back. It is odd, I can do long rides with hills and go fairly hard on the hills, but interval sessions just seem so much harder.

You can also include sweet spot efforts into your endurance ride on the weekend, I started doing that, I am up to 2 x 20 minutes incorporated into an otherwise endurance ride on Sunday. Goal is to get that up to 3 x 30 minutes for a ride that is at least 3 hours.

For the weekday ride you can do threshold work or VO2 max or even sprints, the latter aren't as taxing mentally. With VO2 max I suggest going for 3 minutes, at least at the start, I do those and 5 minutes, and the latter are just very taxing, also mentally, I would not want to do them on a normal ride (like your 2-3 hour one). See what works for you, but if you never push your limits, your limit won't increase much I would think.

Carbonfiberboy 

What performance instrumentation do you use? HR? Power meter? Without data, it's really hard to know what's missing, if anything.

Carbonfiberboy 

Got around to looking up the Triplebypass - 120 miles, 10,000', not so bad, not Markleeville. What you're doing is fine, as long as you ride the long one hard enough. You'd taper the strength down to say 3 sets of 4 of 2 exercises the last 3 months, then nothing the last 2 weeks.

hdas

I have HR monitor and a Garmin 520....but no power meter. FTP last test from 1 year ago was 210. But the bulk of my biking has been after that. Max HR 195.

hdas

Thank you, that's a good point about going hard. I think since I still have to come back home I "restrain" myself in the hard part of the climb. Will experiment with higher intensity.

Carbonfiberboy 

HR is good enough on long climbs and the Garmin records and uploads, all you need. If you know your lactate threshold HR, you can figure your zones. IME to train optimally for long rides, you want 45'-60' of Z4 per week. When training for something, on my weekly long hard ride I typically have about an hour of Z4, maybe 20' of Z5, and about the same Z2 and Z3. The rest of the week is mostly Z2 with some Z3. These durations are typical for a HRM, but not at all for a PM.

I don't restrain myself on the hard ride, quite the opposite. I try to find my limits. I have to know where those are, what that feels like. Back at the car or home, if I've done it right I can hardly get off the bike and have trouble walking for a while.

Of course this year none of us are training for anything other than the rest of our lives. Doesn't hurt to pretend though, and get a feel for what we can hopefully do next year. I usually start my year in October and mostly do strength and endurance until January, except I still go hard on the weekend ride, just shorter, only 30-50 miles. Then I slowly ramp things up.

hdas

Never heard of Markleeville.....tremendous.

Iride01 

Well how do you feel after the long ride you do? If you feel good enough to think it's a breeze, then the only thing I might do is add a short ride that you could go all out at a max effort.

If the long ride leaves you feeling worn out, then you might need to add another day of 30 to 40 miles. As well a day with the short all out max effort ride.

As others mentioned, if you aren't already having some climbs and flats in your current rides that you do short stretches of max effort on, then you should add them.

hdas

Thanks. My rides have everything. The thing that I started implementing yesterday is to pick a segment (usually a nice climb) to do a LTHR effort. Yesterday was a 11 mile 6% Average climb at 10000ft. Felt good and did a PR.